,- f å:A 4'. . \), Þ:=. I*, \ ' / , ,.. ,. II} 'b\ _...- , -t '" ., #/ , \\' . \ , I=,,, , , \i\ J \ IJ __- \ I f f-. (I. :..\' - _____, ( , I , Ji :' .i', \\ : , / r I. \ ' - (,\ ..\, t I \ {{ I , ( r \\ . · ' \ AI , ' I /" I I.... , _ '.,l ! J .' · { / or \r " . ...00::;;.- =- ....... . - -- ,- 44 be nothing to keep her, now that all three of them kne\v where they stood, and it was the kind of thing she'd do -pack up and go when she'd got him out of the way. A coal fire was burning in the café. A rare welcome these days, he re- marked to the woman who'd served him, and pulled a chair up close to it. "I'd take another cup of tea," he said. The little white Volkswagen he'd bought her might be on the road to Dublin already. She wouldn't leave a note because she wouldn't consider it necessary. If the Volkswagen passed by now she would be puzzled at not meet- ing him on the road; she'd never no- tice his own car par ked outside the café. "Ah well, you'd need a fire," the woman said, returning with his tea. "A shocking foggy old month we're having. " "I've known better certainly." He drove on after he'd had a third cup of tea, keeping an eye out for the Volkswagen. Would she greet him with a touch õn the horn? Or would he greet her? He didn't know if he would. Better to wait for the moment. But over the next fifty or so miles there was no sign of his wife's car. ,. f \ ;;;. -- - /Y \ T 1tf.Øiv :/ And of course, he told himself, there was no reason there should be: it was pure conjecture that she'd depart that afternoon, and the amount she had to pack made it unlikely that she could. manage to do so in a day. For the next few miles he speculated on how, other- wise, her departure would be.W ould Lairdman drive down to assist her? That had not been agreed or even touched upon as a possibility: he would instantly put his foot down if it was suggested. Would Phyllis arrive to help her? He would naturally have no objection to that. Certainly, the more he thought about it the less likely was it that she would be capable of com- pleting the move on her own. She had a way of calling in other people when something difficult had to be under- taken. He imagined her sitting on the second step of the stairs, chattering on the telephone. "Would you ever. . ." she had a way of beginning her de- mands and her requests. His headlights caught the familiar sign, in English and Irish, indicating that the town which was his home was the next one. He turned the radio on. "Dancing in the dark," a sensual fe- male voice lilted, reminding him of the world he supposed his wife and \" \\ "Be frank, fan Do I look oustedP" Lairdman belonged to, the thrill of illicit love, tête-à-tête dancing, as the song implied. "Poor Annabella," he said aloud, while the music still played. Poor girl, ever to have got herself married to the inheritor of a country-town bakery. Lucky, in all fairness, that cocky little Lairdman had turned up. The music continued, and he imagined them running toward one another along an empty street, like lovers in a film. He imagined their embrace, and then their shared smile before they embraced again. As the dull third party, not even a villain, he had no further part to play. But as Boland reached the first few houses on this side of the town he knew that none of that was right. Not only had the white Volkswagen not conveyed her to Lairdman in his ab- sence, it would not do so tomorrow or the next day, or next week. It would not do so next month, or after Christ- mas, or in February, or in the spring: it would not ever do so. It hadn't mattered reminding Lairdman of the ignominy he had suffered as a boy; it hadn't mattered reminding him that she was a liar, or insulting him by calling him mean. All that abuse was conventional in the circumstances, an expected element in the man-to-man confrontation, the courage for it en- gendered by an intake of John J ame- son. Yet something had impelled him to go farther: little men like Lairdman always wanted children. "That's a to- tal lie," she'd have said already on the telephone, and Lairdman would have soothed her. But soothing wasn't go- ing to be enough for either of them. Boland turned the radio off. He drew the car up outside Donovan's public house and sat for a moment, swinging the keys between his thumb and forefinger before going in and ordering a bottle of Smithwick's with lime. At the bar he greeted men he knew and stood with them drinking, listening to talk of racehorses and politics. They drifted away when a few more drinks had been taken but Boland remained there for a long time, wondering why he hadn't been able to let Lairdman take her from him. - WILLIAM TREVOR . UH-HUH DEPARTMENT [Adv. in the Grand Rapids Press] ACTORS-AcTRESSEs-Need positive peo- ple of all ages for immediate casting in major film. Training available Minor Film Productions.